Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus, a control method therefor, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there have been proposed a technique in which a wireless LAN compatible device (to be referred to as a wireless LAN device hereinafter) recognizes an adjacent wireless LAN device and a technique of recognizing a network formed by an adjacent wireless LAN device or a service provided in the network.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0036540 proposes neighbor awareness networking (to be referred to as NAN hereinafter) technology. In NAN, a plurality of wireless LAN devices transmit beacons to be synchronized with each other, and set a search period called a discovery window, thereby recognizing each other during the period. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0036540 describes a method in which a neighbor awareness network called a cluster where time synchronization is established is formed between wireless LAN devices and the devices recognize each other during only the search period. According to the method described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0036540, it is possible to suppress the power consumption.
Even if, however, the method described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0036540 is used, it is impossible to avoid an increase in power consumption and an increase in calculation processing for performing a neighbor awareness operation in a wireless LAN device. At this time, if the number of clusters to which a wireless LAN device belongs increases due to an increase in the number of wireless LAN devices existing around the wireless LAN device, the power consumption and calculation processing may further increase. Therefore, it is necessary to efficiently use a neighbor awareness network in accordance with the wireless communication state of the wireless LAN device.